amen cloud 9!

My feathers have lasted me almost 2 years of hard use and they show no ill effects in the shooting department, where a half torn vane will screw everything up!

Feathers will be more forgiving of errors and stabalize your arrow that much faster by creating more drag to help guide that arrow from a possible errant shot, mis matched set up, or boogered what have you.

There are ways of waterproofing them that work quite well, thats the only concern of most folks. I dont like the powders but they do work. I have a spray can of stuff and baby bottle liners when its really bad and cant say I have matted feathers anymore when I take these precautions.

And the misnomeanor of vains holding up better then feathers is a farce! They are however cheaper and easier to deal with....the reason most people use them, LESS WORK! Rip them off, scrap, clean with acetone/denatured alcohol, and refletch.

If you do screw up a feather and it isnt torn or completly mangled....Steam them, it may take a time or four but they will go back to virtually new shape! One thing I have gained from being a fly tier! If you know any fly shops they can help you with the steaming as most of them (experts or advances tiers anyways) will know how to do it. Beginners usually dont care enough to steam materials so stay away. It's pretty simple get a pot of water to a boil, dont completely soak the feathers, if they are really bad, "preen" them with your fingers or a saftey pin (bodkin if ya have one). Let them dry and steam them again and again till they are holding back together. There are barbules inbetween the feather stems themselves that act as velcro to hold them together. Look at an atlantic salmon fly, the wing in particular, how it has slips of different color and even different bird feathers to make one wing. Those barbules are what hold it all together and ALL the good atlantic tiers are steaming ATLEAST once. You may not see the results the first time that you want but give it a bit, you will!